Book discussion groups

I have been moderating the Leonardtown (Maryland) Public Library Discussion Group for many years and can both recommend books (classic and contemporary) and suggest ways to generate discussion of the books you’ve chosen (assuming, of course, that I’ve read them). E-mail me: rrbates (at) smcm (dot) edu. I will not post any ideas that come up in our correspondence until I have first obtained your permission.

Cat’s Eye by Margaret AtwoodPersuasion by Jane AustenJane Eyre by Charlotte BronteChristmas Carol by Charles DickensRoxanne by Jane MinerLove Medicine by Louise ErdrichWhere the Heart Is by Billie LettsTherapy by David LodgeCharming Billy by Alice McDermottGod of Small Things by Arundati RoyCeremony by Leslie SilkoThe Reader by Bernard SchlinkSir Gawain and the Green Knight (Marie Borroff translation)

1/02 The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
2/02 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
3/02 House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
4/02 Beowulf—Seamus Heaney translation
5/02 Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
6/02 Middlemarch by George Eliot
7/02 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
8/02 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
9/02 Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
10/02 My Antonia by Willa Cather
11/02 Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
12/02 Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

2003

1/03 Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
2/03 The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
3/03 Son of the Circus by John Irving
4/03 Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
5/03 Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich
6/03 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
7/03 The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
8/03 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
9/03 Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
10/03 Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
11/03 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
12/03 Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

2004

1/04 Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
2/04 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3/04 White Noise by Don DeLillo
4/04 Cry Beloved Country by Alan Paton
5/04 Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
6/04 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
7/04 The Quiet American by Graham Greene
8/04 Tender is the Night by F. Sscott Fitzgerald
9/04 Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10/04 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
11/04 Le Divorce by Diane Johnson
12/04 The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

1/08 The Sea, The Sea—Iris Murdoch
2/08 The Wished for Country—Wayne Karlin
3/08 A Lesson Before Dying—Ernest J. Gaines
4/08 The Age of Innocence—Edith Wharton
5/08 The Odyssey (Robert Fitzgerald Translation)
6/08 The Penelopiad—Margaret Atwood
7/08 No Country for Old Men—Cormac McCarthy
8/08 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay—Michael Chabon
9/08 Bridge of Sighs—Richard Russo
10/08 A Hope in the Unseen—Ron Suskind
11/08 White Teeth—Zadie Smith
12/08 The Best Christmas Pageant Ever—Barbara Robinson

2009

1/09 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West—Gregory Macguire
2/09 The Scarlet Pimpernel—Baroness Emmuska Orczy
3/09 Alexander Hamilton—Ron Chernow
4/09 Back When We Were Grownups—Anne Tyler
5/09 Queen of the Underworld—GailGodwin
6/09 The Family Tree—Barbara Delinsky
7/09 The Dante Club—Matthew Pearl
8/09 The March—E.L. Doctorow
9/09 Song Yet Sung—James McBride
10/09 Cold Comfort Farm—Stella Gibbons
11/09 The Terrorist—John Updike
12/09 Bridge to Terabithia—Katherine Paterson

That Eye, That Sky by Tim WintonFlight Behavior by Barbara KingsolverThe Paris Wife by Paula McLainThe Marriage Plot by Jeffrey EugenidesThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot DiazNostromo by Joseph ConradSomeone by Alice McDermottDear Life: Stories by Alice MunroThe History of Love by Nicole Krauss
One Maryland One Book: The Distance Between Us by Reyna GrandeThe Book Thief by Markus ZusakThe Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

2015

Snow’s Rest: A Maryland Mystery by Linda StewartColorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki MurakamiGreat House by Nicole KraussExtremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan FoerLila by Marilynne RobinsonLowland by Jhumpa LahiriTravels with My Aunt by Graham GreeneMr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin SloanThe Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
One Maryland One BookAll the Light We Cannot See by Anthony DoerrThe Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupéry

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Literature is as vital to our lives as food and shelter. Stories and poems help us work through the challenges we face, from everyday irritations to loneliness, heartache, and death. Literature is meant to mix it up with life. This website explores how it does so.

Please feel free to e-mail me [rrbates (at) smcm (dot) edu]. I would be honored to hear your thoughts and questions about literature.